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First weekend for games is April 6/7, 2019.

Earlham Soccer

What U group, or age group, are you?

Determining your "Soccer Age"

Soccer ages are determined by your birth year and hold for the soccer season. 



The soccer season corresponds to the academic year, so your "soccer age" is the same for the fall and the following spring (i.e., not the calendar year
). Your "soccer age" for Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 seasons is the age they were between Jan 1, 2016 and Dec 31, 2016. 

Age in 2016    Fall 16    Spring 17
4    U5    U5
5    U6    U6
  6      U7    U7
7    U8    U8
8    U9    U9
9    U10    U10
10    U11    U11
11    U12    U12
12    U13    U13
13    U14    U14
14 or 15    U16    U16
16 or 17    U18    U18


Note:
Based on the number of registered participants and their ages, our teams may be built with kids from two age groups. For this reason, we sometimes use "U6" as a shorthand for "U5 and U6" or U8 for "U7 and U8" and so on.

Age Group
Most Common Age Groups on Team
U6
U5, U6
U8
U7, U8
U10
U9, U10
U12
U11, U12
U14
U13, U14
U16
U15, U16
U18
U17, U18

What's Does "U6" or "U8" (etc.) mean?

"U8" is short for "My soccer age is Under 8."  Since the soccer age corresponds well (but not perfectly) to your child's grade, you may find this table useful.

Age Group
Most Common School Grade
U6
pre-K, K
U8
1st, 2nd
U10
3rd, 4th
U11
5th
U12
6th
U13
7th
U14
8th
U16
9th, 10th
U18
11th, 12th

Do I have to play in my correct age group or can I move up or down?

In the U6-U10 age groups, players are allowed by Iowa Soccer Association (ISA) rules to play up. Thus, we generally allow kids that are young for their grade to play with their classmates, even though they qualify for the next group lower. Thus, young 1st graders usually play U8 and young 3rd graders usually play U10. If your son or daughter is unusually large or unusually skilled for his or her age, he or she is also able to "play up".

Unlike the other age groups, there is a minimum age for U6. U6 players must have soccer ages of at least 4.

In the U12-U18 age groups, the Greater Des Moines Junior Soccer League (GDMJSL) forms their league brackets by U12, U14, U16 and U18 breakdowns.  So for example, U11 and U12 teams both play in their "U12 league".  GDMJSL does follow strict roster guidelines regarding numbers of players on team rosters and does allow players to play up an age group, but not down in age group. 

When the Earlham Soccer Board builds teams in the fall and in the spring, if there is a need to have a participant "play up", we will contact parents for approval before placing them on an older team. Parents can also submit a request that your child "play up" to [email protected]. The board will take it into consideration when building the teams. As a board, we try our best to meet requests, but it is not always feasible. We want to provide opportunities for as many kids as possible to play and field as many teams as possible.

Contact Us

Earlham Soccer

Earlham Soccer 
Earlham, Iowa 50072

Email Us: [email protected]
Phone : 515-868-7881
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